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GoldFire Studios is Oklahoma City's sole video game startup

Oklahoma City partners planning for growth for their startup company that produces web-based games.

BY BRIANNA BAILEY bbailey@opubco.com •
Published: February 5, 2013

Oklahoma City-based GoldFire Studios hopes to be able to afford a bigger office by next year.

The city's only video game startup is currently housed in a dimly lit but orderly one-room office equipped with a refrigerator, a sink and long table cluttered with several computers in the back of a downtown building.

It's there that 24-year-old GoldFire founder and CEO James Simpson and 28-year-old partner Luke Simpkins, GoldFire's chief technology officer, spend most of their days writing code.

“We hope to be able to afford an office with a window by next year,” Simpson said.

It's about to get a little more crowded at GoldFire headquarters. The company of two is preparing to add three more people to its staff after receiving a round of seed funding from investors.

GoldFire was able to secure the funding after participating in the Oklahoma City-based business accelerator VentureSpur's inaugural program in 2012. The program culminated with GoldFire pitching its business plan to rooms of potential investors in Oklahoma City and Dallas.

Simpson and Simpkins are working toward launching their latest game, CasinoRPG. Set on the Las Vegas Strip, the game combines role-playing elements with casino-style games.

GoldFire has embarked on a fundraising campaign to help launch the game through the crowd funding website kickstarter.com. GoldFire set out to raise $20,000to help launch CasinoRPG and had pledges worth more than $18,200 by late Monday.